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Eating together

This may be one of the most important ways to stay lean and healthy, all sorts of research shows.

When we eat as a family, a couple or even on our own at set times, we are likely to be eating in a controlled manner, and are not as likely to overeat as we would be if we just grabbed some food on our own in no particular order and just “got on with it”. This can be especially true in stressful situations.

How many of us have just grabbed some food and eaten far more than planned, as we got in from rushing from somehere and just “went for it”! I KNOW I HAVE, more than once!

This is when a structure matters in our day, breakfast with kids is always great (i only get to do it on the weekend due to my very early starts), lunch is not often a possibility for most of you in the week but tea time certainly is.

The practice of eating together works on so many levels and these two important feeding times should be part of life.

It’s like drinking in the local pub, most of you will be drinking at a decent pace and not throwing those pints back in too much of a hurry. It’s anti-social to be falling around in any public place these days and being in control of yourself is something we are all looking to do.

If you compare that to drinking at home, you have no reason to control yourself at all, you can fall around the place and nobody’s going to know about it. Plus you can drink bottles of wine and cans of beer very cheaply too, at a fraction of the price in fact so “control” is not a word often used when drinking at home.

 I’m not saying that most people drink wildly every night at home, but hopefully you get my point that eating and drinking in more controlled atmsophere’s tend to make us think a bit more about what we’re eating and drinking, therefore leading to less calories and less potential to blow all the good work we are doing with our workouts?

Back to the eating at the table part as a family, its also a great time to introduce new foods to kids, new vegetables and new fruits, if they see you eating all good foods, they are likely to follow given time and if the new foods are introduced in a slightly more imaginative way.

Have a great weekend and hope everyone has put in some great workouts this week?!!!!!

Twitt
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Summer ideas

There are endless ways to get fit this summer, so its up to you to do something about it!

A great way to get started is to sign up to an event of some kind. For example, you have a 10k coming up in mumbles in September along with other events through the summer. We had our mumbles triathlon at the end of april, and I know just how much this motivated those who took part, it puts fresh impetus in your training and allows you to shoot for goals you may not have thought possible.

Try and be like a kid this summer too, if you played rounders/baseball in school, why not now with your kids or grandkids of with anyone. For example, playing with a baseball bat encourages you to work your stomach in the swing motion, and quite a few swings can be the equivalent of 100 sit ups, but in a different motion of course (side to side). Also, the stop start running throughout the game will burn a lot of calories, plus you will probably have a lot of fun in the process!

If you’re down the beach, you can either swim in the sea or if swimming is not your thing, try wading through the water up to your waist, or for the very adventurous try running through the water, this can be extremely challenging so give it a go, a great workout!

You can combine your swimming with some cycling and running too the same day if your fitness is really good. It doesn’t have to be huge distances, for example our sprint triathlon in mumbles every year only lasts around an hour, and the record is 46 minutes so you can make it as long or as short as you want. Plus it can be a lot of fun so try it out!

If you’re not keen on the swimming, just try the cycling and running together, this can be  great buzz for your legs and take your fitness to another level.

Some ideas for you so let’s do it this bank holiday weekend!

Twitt
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Swimming in treacle?

So how’s your summer going? The 84 day challenge was intense, but many of you who followed it at least 50% of the time really did well, and lifted your standards to another level. This has to be a huge positive and will help give you the confidence and foundation to try new things in your exercise plan, and even higher standards with your eating maybe?

The impression I get off some of you though is that the summer has been like swimming through treacle at times.

Lets go through the excuses, sorry I mean “reasons”!

Its been too warm

Ive lost focus

Ive lost my drive

Ive lost my confidence again

I don’t have any time any more to be fit!

My training partner has quit

I have a bad shoulder/knee/elbow

ALL of these reasons/excuses can be overcome and you really don’t want it badly enough if you can’t see through any of these “obstacles”.

 Im not making light of any of this, but I do know a lot of people who overcome far greater things to exercise and eat well, and don’t get blasted with booze and sausages/bacon just because its warm and “I had to have a barbecue”!

Nothing wrong with a barbecue but everything doesn’t have to be like new year’s eve parties every time! Barbecuing can be a very healthy way of cooking, and it was interesting to see last weekend’s research on the news that sausages and bacon were the most likely cause of heart disease and blood pressure in most adults, out of all meats that is. Nothing wrong with them now and again but when they’re in your diet most days, its time to get a grip!

The other reasons like losing your confidence, drive, energy AND time can be sorted out surely. Isn’t it time you grabbed this summer by the horns and made this your greatest summer?!!!

If you tell me right now its not that easy, well lets talk about it and make your argument stand up! I bet it won’t to some scrutiny?!!

Most of you know all this stuff anyway, it really has been a case of implementing it, isn’t that the case?

When I first started this thing, I always banged on about being consistent, eating breakfast every day, snacking healthily, eating protein with most meals, drinking plenty of water through the day, exercising with purpose, sleeping well etc etc.

If you get all of these basics in most of the time, you’re going to be pretty good at this thing called health and fitness.

Lets keep it simple, do your best and keep giving some feedback, it is appreciated!

Twitt
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Warm weather training

It doesn’t take a genius to work out that the last few days have been energy sapping to say the least.

Saturday and sunday in particular was very testing, and not the most motivating weather to get out there and train which means you need to adjust your training accordingly.

When its this warm, your recommended 8 out of 10 effort will naturally be a little less. Don’t expect to do the same things and try and cut back on your training duration too. Its not much fun being out there for hours on days like these.

It’s no excuse either to miss sessions either, all im saying is reduce your intensity in warm weather and take plenty of water onboard, this is the most important factor of the lot and dehydration and exercising too hard in the sun can literally kill you!

Its easy to miss sessions on account of the weather, its too warm, its too wet, its too cold, all of these are likely to happen in this country so dont fall for all of these excuses, all you have to do is adjust your training accordingly which really should not be too much of a problem.

The summer and warm weather is great for your eating too. Nobody likes to be eating big heavy dinners in weather like this, and salads seem to be making a welcome appearance at this time of year too! Automatically, you suddenly want to become lighter because you know in this weather, you will be wearing less clothes and you will be wanting to show off all the hard work some of you have put in during this long, cold winter!

The bottom line is still consistency for you, no need to miss workouts, no need for your fitness to drop and this keeps your motivation high too. Once you stop training, your enthusiasm to stay in shape will drop sharply so lets keep slamming in the workouts, just make sure you’re careful on the very warm days and take proper precautions!

Twitt
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Floyd Landis v Lance Armstrong

The floyd Landis revelations that he ACTUALLY did use drugs for his tour de france win, and years before, was the startling news of this week.

The more shocking or perhaps not (depending on what you believe) was that he was part of a systematic drug doping programme at US postal (Lance Armstrong’s ultra-successful mutli-winning cycling team).

The problem with Landis’ revelation is that he has been a proven liar before.

When he won the tour, he was found to have doped, he denied this.

Then he spent $2 million on his defence and lied on oath stating he never took drugs.

He benefitted from his book “positively false”, stating again that he never took drugs.

So to confess this week is very puzzling and a bit late in the day to say the least.

He does go into great detail though and speaks of the doping programme and how intensive it was.

If you want some more details, have a look at david walsh’s article in the sunday times or timesonline.co.uk, its very good indeed and will let you make your own mind up.

One things for sure, lance armstrong remains the most tested athlete on the planet and still has not tested positive, thats a fact so no point slinging shots at him until theres evidence.

Many of armstrong’s ex-team mates have now tested positive though, tyler hamilton, roberto heras, landis, andreu and vaughters admitted EPO use, and i believe manuel beltran also got caught last year in his final year of racing.

Cycling has been a dirty sport for years, but the last few years it seems to have got cleaner, so here’s hoping for a better future.

Most sports use doping, its just that cycling seems more serious in its testing and banning of athletes especially over the last 4 years.

The sad thing is that there’s a scandal every year just before the tour de france, and this year is no different!

Whatever happens, landis is not going to come out of this good, but if the murky truth does come out one day, then it would have been worth it. If landis has been lying again, he loses any respect he may have had left and his life will remain in the gutter.

Twitt